November to December 20, 2010

Was it Bill and Ted who traveled back in time and went dododo, dododo?  Shall we get our flux-capacitor ready?  Let's head back to November of 2010 and see what the months leading up to Christmas looked like.  

We, like everyone, have picture Christmas cards now, and it always gets nerve wracking around November when you don't have a picture you are planning on using.  (Don't get me started on how I find it difficult to know that all these photos are going to be thrown away.  My Grandma Polly would be horrified by all the bad luck as pictures were thrown away.  Goodness!  Anywhoo...)  Here are a few attempts we made, while raking leaves, to get a nice family picture.  Somehow the focus was off, or the angle was wrong, or something wasn't right for all of these options.  They are good enough for the blog though!

Can you see that Erica brought her little chair out for pictures?  Or maybe we brought it out for the pictures.  The time machine isn't totally clear on that point.  We are cute though!  Yes, Erica does have her pajamas on, thanks for asking. 

I love the sweatshirt that she has on.  The cute fuzzy hood lining is just adorable.

We have a history of Erica wearing odd clothes when we rake leaves.  This year pj's, last year, Halloween clothes!  (Last year being 2009, not the year we are all pretending we are in now, 2010.) 

Aww, happy family with gigantic feet.  Unlike Michelangelo with the statue of David, our proportions are all wrong.  We should have accounted to our foot location in comparison to where the camera was.

We started a new game this winter.  If you can't go outside then you can play obstacle course inside while you watch hockey.  Fun!

Erica had her first "concert" in her OT classroom before the holidays.  Can  you say "overwhelming"?  Can you say "every kid had 2-3 adults staring at them"?  Can you say "crowded"?  The kids did a pretty good job, all the pressure considered, and then there was a party afterwards with snacks.  Erica's teachers were amazing in this room, and we had three of these concerts in the time Erica was in there.  So much work for them, but appreciated by all the crazy parent, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, etc. 

HOCKEY!  Oh yes, we still go to DU hockey games.  Erica dives under Nate's chair and hides when DU scores (because it is loud) but she loves dancing in the aisle when the music plays. 

Here's a picture of part of Mommy and Erica making stuffing for the turkey at Nanna's house.  Erica helped us tear up the bread this year!

Erica after her first Thanksgiving with the Levene's and before her second Thanksgiving with the Ivy's.  (I have no idea where the Levene Thankgiving pictures are.)  Isn't she cute?  Her momma bought her the outfit in San Francisco on a work trip.

The first Thanksgiving wore her out, so she took a nap in the car on her way to Thanksgiving #2.

A cute sideways picture of our blue-eyed girl smirking with her Nanna-blankie.

SMILE cutie!  

Hey!  A picture of Erica with mommy!  We went to downtown Littleton the day after Thanksgiving to see the lights.  We had fun, and Erica got a big bag of licorice candy (yuck!).  However, when Santa drove by, Erica was terrified.  This lead to an entire holiday season of her being afraid of Santa, not wanting Santa to come to our house, Nate being instructed to go to the North Pole to get her present from Santa and putting a "Santa-stick" at the bottom of her door so that Santa couldn't get in.  (To be fair, Mommy tried to convince Erica that Daddy could go to the Santa distribution center in town, but she wasn't buying it.)

Erica and Daddy now.  We are waiting for the light rail to come and pick us up in these pictures.  Santa may have been scary, but Erica loved the light rail!  See the bag of candy in Daddy's hand?

Oh, the train is fun.  I actually think this is the picture right after Erica almost fell over on the train.  Thus the very happy and relieved look on Daddy's face.  Erica just looks happy.  She loves trains!

Here is Erica blowing out the Hanukkah candles.  We enjoy lighting the candles as a nice way to take a minute and slow down during the hubbub of the season.

Erica's crib got converted to a toddler bed, but the constant threat was there from Mom and Dad that we'd make her bed back into a crib.  At one point we even pulled the crib front out of the basement to make the threat a reality.  Here's Erica crying on the chair behind her crib front.  Maybe she really wanted her crib back?  Who knows.  One of those times that being a parent is hard. 

The decoration Erica made in her classroom.  I love that she used the outside of the stickers as a decoration.  See the square with the two circles punched out?  The circles were the sticker, and the square was the outside.  She likes inverse stickers.  I think it's cool.

Ah, the Botanic Gardens lights!  Another fun holiday event. 

The girls hanging out on the Daddy's shoulders.  One Daddy is safe, the other Daddy is not.  Can you guess which one is which?

After a chilly walk around the garden, everyone stops for some hot cocoa. 

Sugar rush!!!!  Yay!!!  Fun!!!  Fun!!!

Erica really wanted to get Daddy a train to go around our Christmas Tree.  She selected a "Dinosaur Train" train.  Little were we to know that in the coming months that would become her favorite TV show, and be more of a present for Erica than Daddy.

Every year we make cut out Christmas cookies with Nanna.  This year, Nanna was sick, so we had to skip it.  Erica and mommy made spritz cookies at home instead.  Erica decorated the cookies as mommy squished them out of the cookie press.  It was great fun, but messy!

 Ah, the flotsam and jetsam of making cookies with a two year old!

So now we are ready for the big Christmas celebration.  Two days of presents and food and family!!!  Take a deep breath for the end of 2010!

Halloween! (a bit delayed)

Remember last Halloween?  Wasn't it great?  Well at the blog, we are still there.  In our time travels we've made it all the way to the end of October, so let's see how Little Levene spent the Halloween season, and yes, it's a whole season at our house.

First we went to Chatfield again this year to pick out some pumpkins from the pumpkin patch.

Oooh, aren't these beautiful pumpkins, and little girls?  After we picked out the perfect pumpkins we checked out a few rides (not Erica) and tried out the bouncy castle (yes Erica). 

Here Erica sits on our front porch with the pumpkins we got from the pumpkin patch (on the right) and the one we grew in our garden (on the left).  Wow, we are good pumpkin growers huh?  For those of you keeping track, this was the picture we used for our Christmas card this year.

Erica took this picture of Mommy.  Her finger is in the way, but she did a pretty good job!

In the middle of the Halloween festivities was Daddy's birthday.  Happy Birthday Daddy.  He got mini chocolate chip cookie cupcakes.  This is the last picture we have with a whole Nate.  Shortly after his birthday he had an attack of appendicitis, and had to have his appendix removed.  So in future pictures, there will be a tiny bit less of Nate.  Dumb luck had it that we checked out "Maisy goes to the hospital" the day before so Erica had some idea of where Daddy was and what was going on. 

Here is Erica the lion ROARing!  Mommy made her costume out of a brown sweatsuit and polartec fleece.  Nice work Mommy!  Erica looks like a fierce lion!

The proud mommy lion and her lion cub before the YMCA Halloween parade.  Aren't we so cute?

Here is Erica in the chaos that is the Halloween parade.  Holy moly!

Erica in the chaos that is the YMCA snacks after the parade.  Do you see her?  Look in the lower left corner.  We loved her classroom!  Her teachers Ms. Mallory and Ms. Lacey are in this shot, and they are amazing!

The next Halloween activity was Halloween at the Y.  Separate from school, this is open to the public and features trunk-or-treat.  The lion attended with a giant butterfly that wore a tutu and cowboy boots.

We carved jack-o-lanterns.  Erica is smiling at the camera, although she looks like she is impersonating the jack-o-lantern. 

Mommy the zoo keeper and daddy the lion tamer keep the terrible lion at bay during actual Halloween trick-or-treating.  The lion tamer uses a chair to keep the beast at bay.  You can also see that a giant spider joined us.  The girls were so great!  Trick-or-treating is a breeze for them, and little kids get all the attention and all the good stuff.  Both girls went home with several full sized candy bars.  Daddy made it the whole way, but just barely.  The walk up and down a hilly street was almost too much for the appendix-less Daddy.  Who knew so much strength and endurance came from such a small organ?

The spider and the lion enjoyed their treats, and didn't have to trick anyone!

Well, we've almost got last year covered and then we can go back to the present.  Shall we head on to November and December of 2010?  I think we should!

Late September to Early October 2010

Here we are in the past again..doododoooo...last September Erica was going to get to see her favorite TV show characters, the Backyardigans, play on the big stage.  It was very exciting for her!

She got all dressed up for the show, and even let Mommy put her hair in pig-tails.  Mommy didn't do a half bad job, for once!

Mommy did do a bad job of checking her e-mail though, because apparently the show was canceled, but we didn't find out until we got to the box office.  It was weird.  There was no traffic, parking was easy and there was no one headed to the arena.  Then we saw the sign and the weirdness ended. 

Look how sad Daddy and Erica are that they missed the show. 

Okay, they aren't that sad.  They are just being silly!  We ended up going to a yummy dinner instead and it was okay.  Mommy sent a mean e-mail to Nickelodeon yelling at them for the late cancelation notice and for only sending an e-mail.  Nickelodeon sent a big box filled with Dora, Backyardigans, Max and Zee, Wonder Pets and other stuff.  So in the end we didn't have to pay for tickets, go to a show, or pay for stuff, so it ended up okay.

We also had a fall trip to the zoo where we learned how penguins sing.  We sat and watched them for a long time.  His honking, hooting song was amazing.

Oooh, bears!

What a cutie pie!

Yes, Erica you are cute.  Yes, Erica the elephant purse is adorable.  No, Erica we can't take it home. 

Next the time machine is going to take us back to doododododooooo....Halloween.  Spooky!

Steamboat - year 2

Let's go back in time, you and I.  Back to a time not so long ago.  Maybe September of 2010.  Remember that time, when we were all a little younger, a little more innocent, and I was totally slacking on the blog?  Well, since this is the only thing I have that resembles a photo album of little Levene's life, we are going back in time this week!

In September 2010 we took, what is becoming, our annual fall trip to Steamboat.  Erica had a great time at the hotel, in the pool and on the hike we took.  The previous year we had hiked Rabbit Ears, but this year the girls were too big for backpacks, so we needed to do a hike the girls could handle on their own.  We tried to find the path to some waterfalls, but couldn't figure out where to go.  Instead we ended up on a little path with a lake and a stream.  It was pretty!  

Best friends on a hike!  Aren't they adorable?

If this was my kid, this would have been our Christmas card picture.  How cute are we?

A cute picture of me with both the girls, but again, it seemed silly to have a Christmas card picture with "not my kid" on it, regardless of how much we adore her.

 Can I hear an "awwwwww"?

Now Nate is looking cute with the two sweetie pies.

Both families, posing on the bridge.  It was a goregous fall day!

Our family, hiking along

Peek - a -

- boo!  Oh, they are hilarious!

As we were walking back from our little foray, we say a super cool caterpillar.  The girls were enchanted with it!

See how cool he is?  Hello fuzzy guy!  Nate actually touched him!

The end of a fun hike!

The girls relax in bed and watch TV after a long day hiking!